Cover reveal: Render, a story of Aligare

I’ve got a shiny picture to show you folks today, and I’m pretty excited about it! So without further ado, here’s the cover for the upcoming Render: A story of Aligare.

Melanie Herring (known in some circles as PurpleKecleon) provided this art on commission. And we followed much the same process as we used for Remedy‘s cover: I described a magic gemstone in a natural setting, and talked about the mood and colour I wanted to see. Melanie got to work drawing, showing me progress pictures along the way and tweaking details based on my feedback. By “details”, I mostly mean making the piece more purple. I love purple. More importantly, purple is a rare colour in real Earth nature — so when you see a purple-lit place with purple plants, you probably imagine a distant land. It’s basically reinforcing the message that fiery magic gemstone is sending.

But yes, I couldn’t be more delighted with this cover for Render! Moments like these make me glad I self-published, so I can make my book covers exactly what I want them to be — with the help of other artists, of course.

So, when can you buy a copy of this pretty book? It’ll be published on Monday,May 7th, through Smashwords and Amazon. I’ll announce it on this blog and in my various social media when Render is live. I’ll probably be giddy enough to throw some sort of book giveaway, so now would be a good time to follow me if you don’t already!